


Everything Broken

by Rellie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellie/pseuds/Rellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill for Elfi</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Broken

Evenfall Hall was not quite devastated enough to be called a ruin, there were still walls and rooms left intact. True, the main hall no longer stood, the Targaryen pretender’s army had all but demolished it and the northern side of the building was nothing more than rubble but—some rooms still stood. Enough for her to get by.

It was eerie to walk the echoing corridors when they were so deserted, it felt to her like the Hall had died with her father. Memories would tug at her from each corner- the courtyard where Ser Goodwin had taught her to fight, the sewing room where Septa Roelle had despaired over her attempts at needlework, her father’s solar –little more than a shell now –where he had sat her on his knee and read to her from books filled with myths and legends.

Brienne reached her bedroom, pushing open the creaking door with a sigh. She had misplaced the soot-blackened lists she’d found that detailed those Baratheon bannermen that might be willing to lend aid to Tarth. It was doubtful after this war that many of them would be in any position to offer her hope but it was all she could think to do.

The stained glass in her bedroom window was broken, the Tarth sigil it had once sported shattered into little slivers of pink and blue glass on her floor. Every day she would look at it and sternly admonish herself she needed to clean it away. And every day she simply left it.

To clear away the shattered remnants of her sigil would be too much like admitting House Tarth was broken.

They’d taken everything of value in her rooms, her old swords and armour, her books, the rarely touched box of jewellery that had been left her by her mother. But the bed was still standing and after years on the road it was a luxury to sleep anywhere aside from the floor so she had merely heaped blankets upon it and slept in the midst of the destruction. The books she had taken from the wreckage of her father’s solar where on the floor beside it but to her chagrin the lists did not appear to be among them.

Most of the servants had fled after her father died and the few fighting men who had managed not to die had either joined the pretender’s army or escaped to the mainland. The only people she had with her were Pod and a little serving girl who they’d found cowering the basements, Melly.

There was a step behind her and she knew it could only be the girl. Podrick would never presume to set foot into her bedroom and were he forced to, would know better than to do so unannounced. At least she could enlist her help in the search for the missing lists.

"Have you seen the…?”

Brienne turned around.

“ _Oh_.”

It was hardly even a word, more a gasp, an inhale. Jaime Lannister was stood in her doorway, the light from the setting sun lit him up in shades of gold and for a second she couldn’t breathe. She felt herself going pale, the blood draining from her face.

It was too difficult to speak. She cleared her throat.

“What are you _doing_ here?”

He frowned, tilting his head as if considering her carefully. Everything about his manner seemed to imply that this was nothing remarkable, as if they had last seen each other mere days ago.

“Is that really any way to greet an old friend?”

There had been rumours he’d died in the frozen North, more that he’d been cut down by the Dragon Queen’s army in the East. She hadn’t believed any of them, couldn’t let herself invite that much despair. But months had passed without word of him, then a year and then another…

 “You’re not pleased to see me?” he asked. His smile was still the same. There was some silver in his hair and beard, maybe a few more lines on his face but his razor-edged smile had not changed in the slightest. She nodded, jerkily, unable to take her eyes off of him.

“Three years. After three years that’s all I get?” He imitated her nod, jerking his head down and contorting his face into a frown “Do you have any _idea_ how difficult it was to get here? Any clue? Well let me tell you now, it’s _difficult_.”

There was still an expression of annoyed indifference on his face but there was something else in his eyes she was sure, something she didn’t know how to decipher. Would she have been able to read his expressions better all those years ago? Would she have looked into his handsome face and know precisely what that look in his eyes meant? She wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember.

“Have you come for your sword? Oathkeeper? I still have it, I can—“

“No I haven’t come all this way for the damned sword.”

 “What do you _want_?”

Brienne could hear the frustration in her own voice. She remembered this now- how direct he could be, how cutting and argumentative. It was just like him to stroll back into her life as if no time had passed and expect her not to be shaken by it.

Jaime took a cursory glance about her room as he stepped inside then turned his attention back to her. She noticed the strain in his expression for this first time. He was not as at ease as he would have her believe.

 “I’m not entirely sure.”

The words cut and she could feel anger stir in her even as she found that she couldn’t look away.  He was giving her a searching look, as if trying to find something in the new scars and lines on her face.

_After three years…_

 “Maybe you should come back when you are sure then.”

Jaime took a step forward and she fought against the urge to either retreat or fall into a fighting stance. He stopped directly in front of her and his scent washed over her. Sweat, fresh air, cotton, something strangely fragrant and half-remembered. Odd how something like that could stay with you. She looked across at him, met his clear gaze, felt a constriction in her throat.

“You don’t know how far I’ve travelled, what I’ve done—“he frowned slightly, shaking his head as if trying to remember “—all to get here, to get to _you_. Don’t even _try_ to send me away.”

Brienne closed her eyes on the sudden, intense look on his face.

 _Why_ , she wanted to ask again, _why why why?_

She was unable to deny the quickening beat of her heart, the blood rushing suddenly in her ears. Something had been nudging at the back of her mind since she first saw him standing there—

“You can’t be here.”

That seemed to amuse him, she could hear it in her voice.

 “In your bedroom? And who _exactly_ is going to throw me out, I mean—“

“No, you _can’t_ be here. There are no boats, they don’t come here anymore and what’s more if you’d walked up from the dock Podrick would have seen you. _I_ would have seen you.”

Her voice held a slight tremor as she opened her eyes and repeated

“I would have seen you Jaime.”

Jaime was quiet for a long time, eyes fixed on her.  Then he nodded, dropping his gaze.

“The dragon queen got me in the end, her armies. It was quick, as painless as I could have hoped for. I thought of you, when it happened—maybe that’s why I’m here.”

He looked so present, solid and for a moment she wondered if this was some kind of elaborate trick. If she reached out now could she touch him, feel the rough texture of his shirt beneath her palms, the heat of his skin—or would her hand past straight through him, like in the stories that were whispered of unnatural visitations.

“You thought of me.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, the gesture so familiar it almost hurt.

 “Yes.”

There were dark circles under his eyes now she looked closer, a drawn quality to his expression that she’d never seen before. Brienne tried to memorise his face, something fresh to replace the worn memory of him three years past.

 “You’re here to say goodbye then.”

They’d said goodbye so many times but never with this much finality. She’d always known, deep down that she would see him again.

 “I suppose I am.”

“Just me?” she asked quietly. His twin still lived, imprisoned in the Keep last she’d heard. Half-mad with grief over the death of her children but alive nonetheless.

His voice was soft, heartfelt in the way it had been during their first goodbye as he said,

 “Just you.”

_Stay with me…I need you. I can’t do this without knowing you are out there somewhere._

Brienne couldn’t make herself say the words out loud. But then would it even matter if she could, he was already dead.  What choice would he have?

“Can you forgive me?”

His voice was tired and though she didn’t know what he wanted forgiveness for but she would have given him anything right then. Tears finally welled behind her eyes, rolling hotly down her cheek.

“You’re forgiven.”

He smiled, soft and achingly familiar.

And then the room was empty, nothing but the whistling of the wind through the broken window left to keep her company.


End file.
